


from hundreds of miles

by ishka



Category: Free!
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-29 11:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8488432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishka/pseuds/ishka
Summary: No one Rin knows but Makoto really understands the depth, this unfathomable void. What it’s like to love at a distance, and everything that comes with it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mosaicos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosaicos/gifts).



> some fluff for the birthday boy and his qt boyfriend ♥ hope you enjoy, mosaicos!

“You have got to stop doing that.”

Makoto looks up at him, eyes wide and confused. He drops his gaze to the hand resting on Rin’s ankle, and slowly removes it.

“N- It’s annoying. The singing.”

“I- oh. I didn’t realize I was doing it,” Makoto says. “I’m sorry?”

“I mean, just stop doing it. Don’t be sorry.”

Haru hones in on it despite his heretofore impenetrable conversation with Sousuke half the studio away at Makoto’s bistro table in the dining area. Slash kitchen. It’s exceptionally small and cramped in here, the bed Rin is resting on taking up nearly everything else. Haru stops mid-sentence, glares directly at Rin, and frowns.

Rin matches his scorn, pinched tight by Sousuke’s curiosity and Makoto’s bewilderment boring into both sides of his head. “What? It’s just annoying. It’s not a big deal.”

“Really?” Haru drills.

Sousuke juts his jaw out as they glare at each other, and finally lets out a sigh through his nose. “I don’t get it.”

“Rin doesn’t like it when I sing,” Makoto fills in. “He thinks I’m annoying.”

Rin jabs the heel of his foot into the side of Makoto’s knee, and repositions his legs over Makoto’s lap. “That’s not it and you know it. It’s the- it’s how you only know like- a line. Then you chirp it over and over again. The same line from the same song. Forever.”

Haru rolls his eyes. “That’s what you want to pick a fight over?”

“I’m not picking a fight. I’m expressing discontentment. As a primary communicator in a mature and healthy relationship.”

“By telling him he’s being annoying.”

Sousuke snorts. “He secretly likes it, Nanase. He’s just being Rin.”

Rin scoffs. “No, I _don’t_. Or else I wouldn’t ask him to stop, would I?”

Makoto’s since removed his hands from Rin entirely, and has them tucked under his crossed legs. Hidden. Off limits? Rin takes a hint and draws his knees back to himself, which separates them by a few inches of mattress.

“I don’t mind, I’m glad he said something,” Makoto chimes in. “I certainly don’t want to be annoying, Rin.”

“I- you’re not annoying, that particular tick you have is. I know every top twenty pop song chorus and nothing else because of that tick. That’s annoying.”

“This is pretty petty,” Sousuke says. “You’re too old for the coy highschool girl act, don’t you think?”

Rin’s irritation flares along with his nostrils. “What’s this big fucking _thing_ where everyone thinks it’s cute when a partner does something annoying and the other says something about it so they must secretly love it? I’m not lying. The singing is _obnoxious_. I don’t secretly love it- it drives me nuts and pisses me off, so I said something. End of. Jeez.”

Haru never stopped glaring to begin with, and darkens. “You could also try _putting up with it for Makoto’s sake_ on for size, since it’s the most trivial issue I’ve ever heard in my life for someone calling himself mature in the same conversation.”

“Okay, okay,” Makoto placates. “Haru, don’t worry about it. Rin, I’ll be more aware of it. Sousuke… I wouldn’t want him to lie. So everything's fine, right?”

“Whatever,” Rin and Haru grumble simultaneously.

Sousuke shrugs and flips to the next page in his anatomy book Haru’s helping him get through. He’s got some weird rote memorization trick that does not work on Rin involving fishy-themed mnemonics that apparently works on Sousuke. He’s getting a B in the class now, up from a fail. Guy’s smart but he can’t commit shit to memory. Unfortunately anatomy and physiology is one-hundred percent committing to memory, so he’s had a rough go of it this term.

Or so Makoto’s informed him over the phone while he’s been away, anyway.

Haru falls back into concentration, Sousuke bends forward again with two fingertips tapping back and forth along his bottom lip as he does when he’s trying to think through something, and Makoto keeps his hands tucked away and his gaze firmly locked on the mid-distance.

“Hey.”

This time Makoto breaks his focus with the floor and draws his lips to a tight, defensive smile as he acknowledges Rin.

“Everything okay?”

He nods once, then furrows his eyebrows briefly and chews his cheek. “I- um. I just.”

“What?”

“It was… it was just a little mean, Rin. A little.”

Rin’s face falls. “Oh. I didn’t want to come across that way.”

“And I didn’t know I was singing, so…” He drops his voice and speaks on a private whisper. “It’s just a song, Maybe… maybe you could’ve waited to tell me. When our friends weren’t here. And maybe not so… mean.”

“I was being honest, not mean.”

“You can be honest without calling me names.”

“I didn’t call you names.”

“Ann-”

“The _tick_ is annoying. You are not annoying. I said that already.”

“The tone really was inappropriate-”

“I’m sorry, all right?” Rin snaps. “Fuck, Makoto.”

Makoto pushes a short, frustrated exhale through his nose. “Please don’t interrupt me, Rin.”

“Well I get what you’re saying, so you don’t have to lecture me. Save it.”

It’s not the right thing to say, if the flash of anger in Makoto’s eyes is anything to go by. He puffs his chest out like he’s loading another round of argument, and deflates at the sound of Sousuke’s laughter reminding them both they still have company. Rin scowls and looks away just as Makoto does, directing his scorn to his phone screen as he brings up a game to tap away at until this shitty study group wraps up. Exactly how he wants to spend his visit: arguing with his boyfriend about his _tone_ like he’s five and watching their friends do homework.

He doesn’t see what the big fucking deal is. They’ve always promised honesty, Rin had something to come clean on. That Haru joined in isn’t his fault, and Makoto’s never taken issue with Rin’s apparent tone before.

Not that his perspective matters for now with Makoto giving him an icy shoulder and Haru and Sousuke in the home stretch of flashcard quizzing. It sinks a pit in his gut of dread for when those two leave. He’s only here a few days before continuing on to Iwatobi to see his mom and Gou, then back to school in Sydney until the end of the term after his current one to round off his first year studying abroad. What sort of brief visit would it be to take up one of those nights with a fight?

Another eternity drags on and he tap, tap, taps away at his game. Unrelenting to the point Makoto glances over at him to see what the ruckus is and Rin can confirm he’s still irritated by the rutting at the corners of his mouth.

When Haru and Sousuke snap their books shut and call it good, Makoto is Makoto and walks them out graciously yet efficiently, the sort of shit he pulls where you think he’s being the nicest, most accommodating friend in the world but he’s really throwing you on the street in a hot minute and you’re too caught up in his smiles and promises of _soon, definitely_ to notice you’ve received the proverbial boot. Rin knows that craft well.

The door shuts, trapping them in together. Rin braces for the piece of Makoto’s mind he interrupted and prepares to fire back-

-but Makoto walks past him into the bathroom, shutting that door too and immediately starting the shower.

It’s the first time they go to bed angry at each other.

* * *

 

Makoto squints at the paper despite his glasses making it clear. “O-lea-gin-ous region. Hm.”

“Oily,” Rin provides, stepping through the threshold to their bedroom with a bowl of cereal for them both. He knows Makoto likes the oat clusters; Rin’s only in it for the pumpkin seeds, ricey bits, and his prized, indulgent, almond-coconut blended milk. The flakes are neutral territory.

“Why don’t they just say that then?”

“It’s a newspaper. Have to pad it superfluously on slow news weeks.”

“With words like _superfluous_.”

Rin takes a carefully selected bite after a pause to flick a rogue oat cluster off, and waves his spoon as a wand as he crunches down, a gentle tap of enlightenment in Makoto’s direction. “Now you get it.”

Makoto reaches up expectantly from his spot on the floor, and Rin hands him the bowl. “I guess I’ll write that one down. It’s a bit odd, though.”

“I don’t think you’ll run into it too often, to be honest. Most people are normal and just say _oily_.”

Makoto hums around his bite of breakfast. Rin sits on the floor across from him, despite his wishes Makoto would just sit at the desk like a guy who values his back’s integrity. It’s just Makoto’s always liked how open Rin’s floor is. He can stretch out all he wants down here, and they don’t have to cram onto the bed to be close. He skims another bite and hands the bowl back.

“One of these days I’ll get through an entire article without asking you what a word means.”

“One of these days,” Rin agrees. “You got plenty of time.”

It’s novel enough even after a year of being here that Makoto’s chest still tightens thinking of it. He has a lot with Rin, they’ve shared their lives since they were kids, but the one thing they never shared an abundance of is time. At some point he’d come to terms with that and was willing to chase after precious seconds, because each one was worth it. At some point he stopped having to, and the feeling was indescribable, sending off shockwaves that still put an off-beat on his pulse after the rest has long since settled down.

Makoto smiles and turns his attention back to his stolen newspaper. Russel said he was done with it, but he’ll need to get it back to the kitchen before Lori gets down there. The paper was folded nice and neat when he asked, leading him to suspect Russel didn’t read it at all, and just keeps the subscription up for Makoto’s ongoing learning benefit.

“Look,” Rin says with a full mouth, jabbing an index finger into an ad on the other page. “It’s a beer festival.”

He resists to urge to reach over and shut Rin’s jaw until he swallows his food, and imagines doing it instead. Last time he actually did it, Rin licked him. The date of the festival isn’t convenient, but it would only be a few hours if Rin really has his heart set on going. “Do you want to go? Maybe we’ll have time in the morning.”

Rin’s gaze drops to the date listed. Next weekend. “Oh, I didn’t realize. Hell no, then. I’ll be way too stressed out to have fun.”

“Well it’s not like we’re moving far or have a ton to bring, so if you change your mind I’m happy to go.”

Rin splits to that painfully dopey grin that’s only somehow spread wider over the last few weeks as the date of their first official- no really this time, Makoto swears, no more postponement, uncertainty, or hurdles- cohabitation draws nearer. He’s been hesitant, but Rin’s been patient, and that’s all Makoto could’ve asked from him as he made sure it was the right choice for himself.

It’s an entirely new continent, after all. Every choice since the one that brought him here has been a serious one.

“I’m _jubilant_ ,” Rin says in English, earning Makoto’s blank stare. “Means I’m very happy.”

“Now you’re just making words up.”

“I’m not! But it gets harder to trip you up every day,” he explains, tilting the bowl to his lips, “so I have to reach deep for the weird ones now. You’re like, fluent.”

“You flatter me. I can barely hold a basic conversation. I get too nervous.”

Rin snorts as the bowl and spoon clang to the floor at his side. “Yeah, that can be true in Japanese too, though.”

Fair, but exaggerated. Makoto’s perfectly calm most of the time, in his own opinion, and this coming from Rin of all people who is quicker to a stutter than Makoto ever will be. He only answers in a chuckle that Rin reads for what it is and matches. If he didn’t pass English proficiency, he wouldn’t be here.

“Maybe we should start packing today, since we’re both home and I don’t have any exams until Wednesday.”

“Don’t you need to pick out an internship soon?”

“-ish,” Makoto says. “Still have a few weeks to go over the options.”

Rin frowns. “I hope you like one that’s nearby.”

Otherwise they’ll be separated again, by hundreds of kilometers of coastline this time. Wouldn’t that be just their luck. It’s not something he wants to think about until he absolutely needs to, not yet. “Me too. So, packing?”

“Mmmaybe. Or… I send Russel and Lori out for a nice, long lunch and we have a different sort of lunch while the house is all ours.”

Rin’s leaning forward with his eyebrows raised and his hands on his crossed legs to comical effect. Makoto figures regardless of their day, it is now after ten and Rin’s too impatient to sit idly as Makoto picks through the rest of the paper, and so re-folds it to return to the kitchen on his next pass-through.

“In a week we’ll have a place that _is_ all ours,” Makoto reminds him. “You know how I feel about manipulating your family away for sex.”

“Boy do I ever,” Rin sighs. “Here I thought if I convinced you to leave Japan, the sex was easy sailing from then on out.”

“Well, I didn’t account for how weird it would feel once I got here, admittedly. It’s like back home when my family was in the house, you know? They could be out there looking at photos of you from when you were twelve while you’re in here-”

“Suckin’ your dick?”

“Sucking my dick,” Makoto confirms. “Too much, right?”

“Infallible,” Rin mutters. “I’ve made a monster of you.”

“And you give yourself way too much credit, as usual.”

Rin thumps a fist to his chest. “Gotta make up for the both of us. No easy task to shoulder this much _ego_.”

“And I apparently shoulder the humility. What a team.”

Rin’s eyes go soft in that rare and infuriatingly wonderful way, that throwback look to a honeymoon period long gone. They share more practical looks these days more often than not. Lust. Anger. Happiness. Basics, really. That complicated, fathoms-deep communication isn’t necessary anymore because they’re not complicated anymore.

They are soft in other ways that were difficult to express back then and now come easily; touch, voice, actions when it calls for it. Makoto prefers their looks of practicality, but no adoring look goes unnoticed or unappreciated either. He knows Rin feels the same.

“Are spontaneous make outs against the family-in-the-house rule? I forget.”

He’s already scooting towards Makoto and slapping the newspaper out of his warpath, so Makoto shakes his head and chews on his laugh to withhold giving him the verbal satisfaction of _no, it is not_ until he earns it.

It’s these sorts of mornings that make Makoto say yes all over again.

* * *

 

_i know this is bad, but i am so sick of volunteering. you know what sounds great? a paycheck._

Under the glare of the sun, Rin can hardly make out the words on his phone’s screen. Once he does he smiles to himself. Makoto lasted longer without a lick of complaint than Rin would’ve. It’s been months of insisting it’s not that bad, it’s very fulfilling, it’s required of his undergrad program anyway, et cetera. But it sure doesn’t put food on his rickety bistro table, and Rin often jokes Makoto might be worse off than the destitutes he helps keep fed and warm in these cold months.

Well, it’s cold for Makoto. Rin rolls over onto his stomach to get the sun on his back, and pulls his crumpled towel straight to protect his phone and hair from the sand. He rests his cheek on one arm while his other clumsily replies to the text.

_did you ask your parents for money yet?_

_i thought about it,_ Makoto responds. Better known as: shut up, Rin.

So no, he didn’t. Rin doesn’t push it. He has just as hard of time as Makoto does asking for money. And there’s no progress to be gained trying to get Makoto to chill out and stop trying to be everything to everyone. When Rin tells him to cut it out, Makoto stops sharing his struggles, and that’s even worse.

 _going out tonight?_ Makoto sends, cutting Rin off whether he wants to push it or not.

_ya think so. why not, right? should be fun, alex’s bday._

His teammate turns twenty-two tomorrow- a Saturday- and while he had morning classes and practice, he’s free for the weekend. It’s the first invite out he doesn’t have a good excuse for bailing out of. He’s on the fence if he even wants to go; people end up too loud, too rowdy, too… aggressive. Maybe it’s just his outings leading up to this always end that way, and that’s not the norm, but it gives him longer pause each time to agree to go. He can’t afford to get into trouble, after all. Not with his swimming scholarship the only thing keeping him here.

_be careful._

Rin taps the corner of his phone with his index finger in pause. Makoto’s texts can be hard to read. He drops out of the conversation with statements like that all the time, re-enters it seemingly out of nowhere as if he didn’t. It’s perplexing. If he has something to say, Rin wishes he would say it. If Rin asks, Makoto laughs and says he got busy, but Rin isn’t stupid.

_do you think i should stay home?_

_no, i think you should be careful._

_have a nice time, rin._

“Matsuoka! We need to get ready!”

He looks between his phone and Alex, and hopes Makoto gives him a better sign than that. They’ve talked about this. Being open. Ad nauseum. If Makoto doesn’t want him to go, Rin is more than willing to discuss it and consider it. But shit, he knows Makoto listened to their talks about this, so it must not be that damn important of a protest.

“I’m comin’,” he sighs.

Alex crosses their few steps of distance and stops at the edge of Rin’s towel, littering it with a kick of sand that scatters across his phone. Rin growls. “Hey, asshole, I’m down here.”

“You got that face says your missus is bein’ a bit of a shit.”

Further incensed, Rin rolls to his feet and scoops up his towel and phone in one dip. “Pretty sure it’s not your fuckin’ business, and he’s a guy, as I told you when I also threatened to knee your teeth in the last time you said that.”

Alex rolls his eyes and kicks another pile of sand near him. “Why you always such a downer, Rinny? Guess we’ll see if gettin’ you tossed does anything for the rod up your ass.”

Rin takes a tense step forward, the growl behind the roll of his jaw only drowned out by Bon Jovi’s _Dead or Alive_ blasting from his phone in his hand as he does (Makoto having been convinced a few months ago it’s an official song played alongside America’s national anthem).

“Don’t say it again,” Rin warns Alex’s retreating back. He’s already answered Makoto’s call, prompting a confused hum on the other end. “Nothing. What’s up? Everything okay?”

Makoto hums again, trailing to silence. Rin waits. “I don’t know why I called you,” Makoto finally says. “I-”

 _miss you_ , Rin wishes he’d say. Just once. He never has in over two years apart. _I’d like to see you,_ sure. _Can’t wait_ , sometimes. _I love you too_ nearly every day for the last three months, finally. But never that simply selfish _I miss you._

“-really do hope you have a nice time. I didn’t mean to come across upset. I’m not, but I see how it could read that way.”

“Ah, right,” Rin mumbles. “No big deal, Mako. I think I might stay in anyway.”

“You should go. It’s good for the team, right? I just-”

_miss you miss you miss you_

“-worry, is all. You’ve told me how rambunctious your team can get.”

It hurts, it will never stop hurting. This _othering_ Makoto does, distancing himself from Australia-Rin just in case the ocean proves uncrossable one day. Makoto above all too afraid of holding Rin back to even say the _I miss you_ that whispers unmistakably between each word of their calls. “Nah. You guys are my team… these other guys are shitty stand-ins.”

Rin can see the sad little smile in his voice when he responds. They all miss swimming together, at least. They all have that in common. “I want you to make friends there like I’m making here; I’ve really enjoyed myself going out more since you convinced me to. It was tough at first, but I’m happier.”

“I know. Alex though… Alex is a prick. So you know what, I’m staying in, and if you’re not busy we could get video going tonight. I like that idea a lot better.”

“I’m not busy,” Makoto admits quickly. Like he’s ashamed to be free. “I’m home, all night. Sousuke and Haru are taking Gou out to some wrestling thing? I don’t understand it exactly but I wasn’t all that interested in going again anyway. Those three are all passionate about it but the one and only time I went we sat too close and one of the fighters got blood on me, which is just a biohazard, you know? I think I told you about that?”

Rin chuckles to himself, annoyance abating as Makoto’s tired nervousness ebbs away to something warm and familiar finally reaching deep where the summer’s sun hasn’t been able to lately. “Yeah, you did. Hysterically pissed off, shit-faced, on speaker phone, and as you tried to take a shower in the facility’s bathroom sink.”

Makoto laughs until he groans. “Right. It didn’t work, by the way, and that dark green shirt you love is in a landfill somewhere now.”

“Guess you gotta wear nothin’ for our call tonight then,” Rin ribs. “Since that’s the way I like seeing you most if it ain’t in that shirt.”

“Well, it’s only fair if you do it too. Especially since it’s cold here.”

“I’ll even ditch the pants,” Rin promises. “Because it’s hotter than Satan’s asscrack here and I know at the very _least_ you miss my body, right?”

Just like that, Makoto folds back in on himself, and Rin considers drowning in the tide if however briefly for not really thinking those words through more carefully. “Oh- I. Hm.”

Wonderful. Great slip up. It was going so well. “It was just a joke, Mako, I didn’t- not _only_ my body-” A weary sigh. How he said it is exactly how he meant it; why lie? “I am so fucking sick of this,” he says instead of thinks, and doesn’t care much that he did this time.

“Me too,” Makoto agrees quietly.

With what, Rin asks himself, as it’s not like he offered Makoto details. Maybe it doesn’t matter. All they both know at the end of the day is: it sucks. All of this sucks. All of it’s difficult and frustrating, none of it’s changing any time soon.

“I miss you,” Rin says and digs his feet into the warm sand to redirect the spike of anxiety that comes with giving in and saying it. “A lot.”

“Soon, Rin. Less than two months-”

“Do you miss me at all?”

He knows Makoto does, he knows it’s childish to ask. The quietly whispered, half-awake _wait_ at the end of any video call, followed by Makoto leaning forward and getting one last look at Rin before nodding and disconnecting the call. The way he always makes sure he’s giving Rin live updates wherever he is, if it happens to be outside the normal routine. Or on days Rin admits he’s feeling lonely, play-by-plays of the mundane, too. Maybe it comes with the confidence Makoto packages up and gifts to everyone he cares about, but Rin knows Makoto misses him just as much and there’s no need to be this way.

But he’d really like to hear it.

“... Do you think I don’t?” Makoto asks after a long pause.

“No,” he sighs. “You do… don’t you?”

Makoto’s short laugh startles Rin, just as he digs his feet deep enough to hit cold, wet sand. “Rin, I think I’ve spent more of my life missing you than not at this point. I don’t know what it feels like to have enough of you. So, no-” Makoto clears his throat nervously, if Rin didn’t know any better. “I mean, yes. Missing you is one of the things I’m very good at.”

Rin smiles, a slow spreading melt, and makes sure it forms his words so Makoto can see it too. “It’s nice to hear,” he says, then thinks to quickly add Makoto’s next concern: “It doesn’t make me feel guilty for being here. I know that’s why you don’t say it.”

Makoto will tell him less than two months later in private at some point missing Rin felt more normalized and unremarkable than anything else.

* * *

 

There is nothing ostentatious about the one-bedroom apartment situated an approximate fourteen minute drive away from Rin’s homestead, which considering the gravity of its meaning is a balance Makoto welcomes, maybe craves.

He’s learned to be open and trusting with Rin as best as the limits of his existence permits; that hasn’t eroded away at Makoto’s sense of discretion. There will always be feelings he doesn’t share with Rin, just as there will always be parts of Rin he doesn’t know either.

Makoto is afraid.

He looks back at all of his taking two steps at a time to get him to where he is now and he forgets how to breathe this high up where the air is so thin. He has dreams where he walks down the roads they both frequent alone, left here on his own in a foreign country to fend for himself. Those dreams wake him up and force his eyes open to make sure once more it isn’t true, and Rin is still there snoring comfortably on top of the blanket he managed to get over at some point in the night.

But they’re dreams, not nightmares. Things to consider, or his mind’s way of reconciling choices never seen to fruition. His fears are anyone’s in a similar situation, which is comforting in its own right. They will ease over time, they always have, and they’ll leave him in better shape than when they found him. Makoto learned to trust and befriend his fears long before Rin was responsible for any of them.

Rin doesn’t need to know Makoto is afraid. Rin needs to know Makoto is sure. Because he is afraid, but he is also sure, as few things in life are truly mutually exclusive. Rin doesn’t need to know why in explicit terms Makoto turns down the idea of a contemporary modern two-bedroom condominium for them to stretch out their limbs towards three meter ceilings because he already knows why Makoto chooses the quaint one bedroom sandwiched on the second story of the building with the living room window facing out towards Japan instead.

A window he stands in front of now for less time than he did a month ago, and less time than he did the month before that. He can see the faintest tell of raindrops running thin lines down the outside, if he strains his ear he hears the patter.

Makoto leans forward enough to force his exhale to condense on the chilled glass: “Rin.”

To what might always be Makoto’s surprise no matter how long it’s been, Rin answers him now. Rin’s right there. Makoto’s still adjusting to how lightly he sleeps. “Mm?”

“It’s raining.”

“Bullshit,” he yawns. “It doesn’t rain here.”

“Honest.”

“What time is it?”

“A little after four.”

A sheet rustles behind Makoto as Rin turns off his back and onto his side from his makeshift futon (a pile of old comforters) on their living room floor. They could go get a bed at any time, but Makoto suggested something different for now until they’re sick of it. Something with a view. “You’re never up this early. Come back to bed. It’s my day off.”

“You’re never up this late,” Makoto corrects. “Go back to sleep.”

“You said my name, you woke me up?”

Another thing Makoto chooses to keep to himself is the number of times he’s said Rin’s name aloud to an empty studio and received no response. “I did, I forget you’re here sometimes.”

“ _Well_ ,” Rin huffs, thankfully more than familiar with Makoto’s twilight-summoned candor, “in case you forgot, you have a meeting with your thesis advisor today at, like, ten, so maybe you could try sleeping too.”

He’s on schedule with his work because he can’t afford to blow this one shot he has, and it’s not like she can understand his accent anyway. Their meetings are short. This one is about confirming his final internship next year. Four months away now. This is another thing Rin doesn’t know, and why Makoto’s awake now.

“I had to see it rain for myself. I’ll sleep soon.”

“You’re gonna make me spell it out for you, aren’t you?”

Makoto smiles. “Of course I am.”

“Then please come here, you insufferable smart ass. Without you here I’m just an idiot sleeping on the floor.”

“And with me here?” Makoto inquires as he rejoins him. He keeps himself turned out to the window in unspoken compromise.

“Then we’re two idiots sleeping on the floor.”

Rin sounds proud of that one, so Makoto grants him a laugh he might’ve otherwise kept in with respect to the time and his preference for silence while the moon is out. But it’s behind clouds tonight anyway. If Haru is up, Makoto hopes he sees it clearly from Japan.

“We’ll go back one day,” Rin reassures softly, moving close enough to sigh and shift the hair at the back of Makoto’s neck. “When you tell me you’re ready.”

“I know. I’m not ready.”

“I know _you_ know, I’ve been here so long I don’t always believe myself though.”

Outside, the light sound of rain abruptly stops. Makoto figures he won’t catch it again any time soon. When he checked the forecast, the mild storm system was on its way north towards Brisbane. He shares that in common with the weather.

“Maybe we can follow it to Brisbane,” he says out loud.

“Wanna?”

His candor fails him momentarily, and his throat closes fear around a truth Rin needs to hear. He doesn’t know how to tell Rin it’s him leaving this time. He’s not convinced of it himself yet. “I will be,” he manages steadily through his terrors. “Next year.”

Rin’s hand is quick to Makoto’s waist but hesitant to settle, worried and insecure. Makoto inhales deep to close the distance and allow Rin’s fingers to touch at all points. “How long?”

“One year. Starting in February.”

“Okay,” Rin breathes. “I- Fuck. Okay.”

He steps into his rehearsed prepared reasoning, though Rin didn’t move to argue or get upset to warrant it. Aside from surprise, Makoto doesn’t sense anything contrarian from Rin at all, and all of his usual subconscious Rin-algorithms fall silent with no answer in how to proceed with this difficult admission other than what he’s prepared for. “The institute in Brisbane works more along with what I need. They’re willing to provide room and board as payment, so that’s cutting into less of our savings than we thought.”

Rin shakes his head, pivoting his forehead at the knob of Makoto’s spine. “Don’t care.”

“Ah,” Makoto answers clumsy, for lack of anything else to say.

“I mean-” He sighs and shuts his eyes; Makoto feels his eyelashes sweep downwards along his bare shoulder blade. “It’s only a year, right? It’s for you, it’s right for you. So it’s okay.”

Makoto turns and faces Rin, who for all of his engaging conversation looks like he’s fighting to stay awake. Makoto wishes he had Rin to face him like this when he would lie there for hours and reason with himself and his deafening loneliness. It wasn’t always there, but Makoto isn’t too proud to admit it existed.

He wishes Rin somehow knew it would keep him up sometimes since Makoto could never tell him in their calls. He could never interrupt Haru’s busy schedule more than he absolutely needed to, ask Gou to drive so far to keep him company, overstay his welcome at Sousuke’s. And he wishes if Rin were there to face him on those nights, Rin would’ve lied to him as he’s about to do.

“It won’t be that bad.”

Because some truths can wait until dawn.

* * *

 

If absence makes the heart grow fonder, and love makes you stupid, Rin is currently the dumbest man alive.

He’s folded and unfolded the coffee ring-stained papers in his hands at least fifty times. The print’s rubbed away at the creases, and if he shook it out it would fall apart into four unequal quadrants.

Why should one attend University of New South Wales? Good question; according to these faded and trashed informational print-offs it is _Australia’s most preferred university_ and receives the _most research funding,_ among other inflated accolades. Really Rin wouldn’t care if it were this school or any other in the end; it’s the message he’s trying to send. Trying, trying, can’t.

Every time he’s steeled himself to broach this topic with Makoto, he isn’t tempered enough. Can’t do it. He’s done everything else, made it this far, talked about one hundred and seven uncomfortable topics this year alone with the one man on earth who has proven time and time again to be trustworthy, kind, and gentle. He would never shoot Rin down or make fun of him, belittle his efforts or ignore him, do anything short of seriously consider whatever Rin brings up as important. No matter what it is.

And _yet_.

“He’s gonna think I’m a fuckin’ clingy psycho,” Rin mutters to himself.

He raises his eyes to the digital clock on the locker room wall. He needs to be on deck with his team in ten minutes, and in another hour, effort willing, he’ll have beat the shit out of at least one of the fly distances or the eight hundred relay for the FINA World Championships.

It’s not pinging as seriously on his radar as it should be. It isn’t his first world competition and it won’t be his last. This has been his entire life after all, he’s practiced himself into the best version he could’ve made. Every single detail of his swimming career has been up to him, under his control, even when he shot Sousuke text novellas about how unfair his regimens were. This is all him and his hard work and he knows with every part of himself he’s done his best no matter the outcome of his race.

This, however, is different. It isn’t up to Rin, he can’t make this happen just because he wants it. Makoto could easily say no. He’s turned Rin down graciously on vague terms many times leading up to this. The joking sort of terms. The suggestive _well if you were here with me Makoto I could take care of that for you_ met with a dismissive _koalas terrify me, I’ll take my chances with my hand thanks_ response.

Sure, Rin’s never outright asked if Makoto would be interested in attending grad school presented in a language he’s only just learned in the last three years, on a different continent, surrounded entirely by strangers and stranger _-er_ culture. Which isn’t like Rin, not to get a question like that out of his system and know for sure.

And he’s out of time, because Makoto has been deliberating over graduate schools for the upcoming spring, and all of his discussions have centered around Japan. It’s two more years apart if he stays. Rin’s swimming career isn’t even halfway done yet; in fact it’ll only get busier. He won’t be able to visit Japan as often, and Makoto won’t be able to visit Rin practically ever as long as he’s pursuing higher studies full time.

It makes Rin woozy. It puts them in one hell of a bad spot, on two different roads with no chance of crossing. But Rin can’t ask Makoto to move like that. Further, he doesn’t want Makoto to do it in the first place if it’s only for Rin.

He can only offer it by way of an option, no matter how deep it makes Rin ache to think about a life where he gets to taste Makoto’s morning coffee on his lips, massage the strain out of Makoto’s shoulders after he’s hunched over his studies for hours. He could kiss him goodnight, hello, goodbye, sorry, with surprise. Press his thumbs to Makoto’s passion-stained cheeks, get to work on their mile-long list of everything they’ve only ever got to talk about needing each other for.

When he explained his quandary to Haru in sworn confidence, Haru offered a thoughtful, though his ultimately standard issued by now: Makoto is Makoto.

“You won’t pressure him by asking. He does what he wants, Rin,” he added before hanging up to get ready to go out, which serves itself as cryptic as it does hopeful. In conjunction with Makoto’s bombardment of Japanese options, the answer to Rin’s question is forming before he’s figured out how to ask it.

Five minutes until rally.

_Makoto, have you considered studying in Australia?_

That’s all it should be. He could text it in a few seconds, and be out in front of the pools ready to swim away from it while Makoto watches him from his laptop half the world away as he ruminates.

The thought gets the phone in his hand, the clang of his locker already forgotten as he returns to the bench having swapped the trashed papers out for it.

His teammate Alex pops his head around the corner and looks side to side, eyes landing on Rin curiously. Everyone’s already on deck; have been for twenty minutes, he says without needing to verbalize. Rin waves him off. “Rituals, you know?”

“ _Ah_ , Mr. Phone Background. Don’t you get tired of jackin’ it in front of a webcam?” Alex throws over his shoulder.

Well, begrudgingly yes, but that’s not the entire point or even close to comprehensive.

No one Rin knows but Makoto really understands the depth, this unfathomable void. What it’s like to love at a distance, and everything that comes with it. Fight, sorrow, excitement, confessions, discussions, planning, intimacy. It’s all just enough to keep them afloat, but not enough to keep them fulfilled. It’s the idea of two more years of it suddenly looking impossible, despite the dogged determination they both posses to get them through it if they had to, but not because Rin wants to. Not because Makoto wants to. They have to, if that’s the way it needs to be. But maybe…

Rin sighs, none the better prepared to ask even now. Two minutes.

 _i keep hearing good things about the science programs at unsw,_ he holds his breath to send. He’s facing defeat another day, at least with this. Victory might await him upstairs, but not here. He still just can’t fucking _ask_.

The ellipses which have come to define so much of their relationship begin their bounce. Makoto starts his reply, deletes it. Repeat. Until Rin only has one minute to get his phone back into the locker and his ass up onto the deck. He nearly convinces himself to wait until after his impendingly long day of what will be an addictive combination of competition, glory, and disappointment to check for Makoto’s answer.

Nearly, because his phone lights up just as he’s shutting the locker door again, and Rin needs to know.

_did you think i was putting myself through the hell of learning english for fun?_

* * *

 

They always meet in front of Coffs Harbour’s Big Banana.

It’s not without history, and has nothing to do with his surname. It’s not quite the halfway point between them, but it’s pretty close. Originally they meant to meet at new points in the middle to see some new places together every visit, but the Banana statue was up first, and with the Banana statue it has remained.

The first time they drove to meet in the middle, it was all Rin could belligerently shout about into the phone after having been lost in the area for upwards of an hour, after six previous hours of nearly straight exhaustive driving from Sydney, as he gave up and directed Makoto to his location for rescue.

_“The BANANA, Makoto. THE GODDAMN BIG FUCKING BANANA.”_

Why would Makoto ever have them meet anywhere else after a line like that?

The days they meet are the days Makoto lives for. His internship is engaging, he’s learned so much and he’s relieved to look back and think about how fast it’s flown by. But Makoto has been learning exclusively for years. He’d like to start to get familiar with things, starting with Rin.

“Eight months later and you still won’t let me live it down. We can meet somewhere else, you know. There are plenty of other landmarks.”

Eight months is a nice reminder they only have four to go. Four months is nothing, four months has them excited every time they talk.

Then Makoto returns home to their Sydney flat for the next adventure. A graduated, school-less one for them both, with Rin now, and one Makoto refuses to take with anyone else, anywhere else. Not this time.

Makoto shakes his head, loops Rin around his neck, and takes their customary Big Fucking Banana photo using his phone for Haru’s amusement. Likely also Sousuke’s. Definitely Gou’s. Rin takes enjoyment in it as well, or else he’d actually suggest one of these other landmarks he talks about so much to meet up at. Every silly memory together is important, sharing them even moreso.

“But this is our tenth Big Fucking Banana photo,” Makoto says as he drafts the message to send over. It’s a good one this time. They look nice, even in front of something as ridiculous as this statue, even for how road-weary Rin is. “Haru expects it now.”

Maybe Rin is exceptionally exhausted this time, as he doesn’t bother a cursory glance of their crowded, touristy surroundings before he turns and kisses Makoto in true greeting, and none all too gently. Maybe Makoto misses Rin more than usual, somehow, as he allows and devours it for all that it’s worth.

“Hi,” Rin grins and steps away. “What’d I do to deserve that?”

Makoto shakes his head again, with a helpless smile this time, and gestures towards the direction of the water. “I just missed you. Food or nap first?”

“You,” Rin answers simply. “And everything we’ve missed.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://iskabee.tumblr.com/)|[twitter](https://twitter.com/letsmosey)
> 
> i actually bothered to have one of my fics beta'd for once. [sierra da mvp.](https://twitter.com/sierrasuke)


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